Sports-Car Pileup Claims Ferraris, Lamborghini

Police officers investigate damaged Ferrari cars at the site of a traffic accident on the Chugoku Expressway in southwestern Japan on Dec. 4.

Flashy sports cars valued at as much as $4 million became a mangled mess in a matter of minutes on Sunday when a Ferrari leading a pack of exotic sports cars on a trip from Japan’s southern island of Kyushu to Hiroshima skidded as it tried to change lanes.

When the smoke cleared, eight Ferraris and one Lamborghini in a 20-vehicle group driven by amateur sports car aficionados were among the cars banged up in the 14-car pile-up. About 10 people suffered minor injuries in the accident on Sunday morning on a 400 meter-long curve, according to the Yamaguchi prefecture police. Some have already been discharged from the hospital.

But local authorities say it likely wasn’t a case of “The Fast and the Furious.”

Although the investigation is continuing, based on initial interviews, the type of the damage the vehicles suffered and injuries, authorities said they don’t believe the cars were burning rubber as per the highway throwdowns made famous in the street racer movie series.

Instead, wet road conditions may have caused the first car, a Ferrari driven by a 60-year-old male, to slip on the two-lane highway and smash into a guard rail. Cars behind then added to the pile-up as they tried to screech on the brakes. Yamaguchi prefecture’s highway investigation officials declined to specify how fast the cars were traveling.

In addition to the nine sports cars damaged, another two Mercedes Benz cars traveling on the other side of the highway got caught up in the crash when flying car parts hit the vehicles.